Episode 60: Danny Strong, “Dopesick”

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Transcript

Geri Cole:

Hi, I’m Geri Cole, and you’re listening to On Writing, a podcast from the Writer’s Guild of America East. In each episode, you’re going to hear from the people behind your favorite films and television series, talking about their writing process, how they got their project from the page to the screen, and so much more.

Today, I’m excited to be joined by Danny Strong, creator and co-writer of the new Hulu series Dopesick. Dopesick is an eight episode series depicting the full scope of the opioid crisis. Danny’s also the co-creator of the Fox series Empire, the writer of the Hunger Games Mockingjay Part One and Two, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and the Writers Guild award winning films, Game Change, and Recount.

In this episode, we talk about how he weaved four stories across three timelines, writing stories that spark national conversations, and how falling into you YouTube holes can be a part of your process.

Danny, thank you so much for joining us today. And I’m going to echo Jason in saying thank you so much for making this series, because I feel like I discovered how much I didn’t know. Yeah, how much I didn’t know and how much it actually has affected my generation. And it was sort of always happening, but I don’t think I was not nearly not aware as I should’ve been. So I feel like actually I might be a little bit out of my depth in this conversation because it is such a complex issue. So please bear with me.

So I just want to start out actually by saying, how are you doing, in general, but also in light of the bankruptcy ruling? How are you feeling?

Danny Strong:

Yeah, I mean, in general, to be honest with you, it’s just intense right now, releasing the show. We did a premiere yesterday in New York and there’s going to be a DC screening and I go to Washington DC for three days of press and then I’m going to London day for four days of press. And it’s all very exciting, but it’s also stressful. And then I got to get back to my writing as well and my producing. So there’s a lot of different things going on, but, yeah, I’m excited about the show. I’m excited about the reception of the show. The bankruptcy is something that I had internalized many months ago, was really clear where that had been going for quite a long time. It was clear where it was going when Purdue very cleverly picked Judge Drain in that region to file bankruptcy. And so it’s sort of just one more example of Purdue getting away with it and justice not truly being served for their actions.

Geri Cole:

Which is a surprise, honestly, probably to no one, but still heartbreaking, nonetheless. So there’s so much here. There’s so much here and there’s such a great responsibility to the story. I guess I want to hear about what personally drew you to this story and how did you start?

Danny Strong:

The story came to me from John Goldwyn, who was one of the producers of it, who had reached out to me. We had breakfast and he pitched me the idea of the opioid crisis, about writing and directing a movie on the opiod crisis. And I thought I’d read the article, the New York article by Patrick Radden Keefe that he had read, that sort of had sparked him where he thought there would be a great movie about the Sackler family. And so I thought, “Oh yeah, I read that story and it’s a perfectly enraging story.” So then I started researching beyond the story, and there’ve been multiple books at that point written about it. And there was a big Esquire article about it as well. There was a lot of information out there, pretty much a really kind of stunning amount of information out there.

And why I say stunning is the fact that it took Patrick’s article in 2017 for the country to understand, “Oh, no, this was all generated by one company controlled by one family.” So when I dove into the research, when I read about a US Attorney case, my ears pricked up because I thought, “Oh, oh, there’s a case, which means there’s an investigation, which means there’s maybe a legal drama there, and an investigative thriller there.” And then I read about in 2000, 2001, the DEA had an active investigation into Purdue Pharma and it started this press war against Purdue Pharma. And my screenwriter ears pricked up again. I’m like, “Oh, oh, so we’ve got more investigators taking actions against this company.” And it made me think, “Oh, well, that’s how you could construct this as a story, because you would have some clear protagonists to follow. You would have procedural beats of things they did, you would have hopefully exciting revelations from what they uncovered, and by showing what they uncovered, you would then be able to have some of the bigger ideas, which is showing the crimes of the company.”

And then I thought, “Well, okay, can we go inside the company? Well, that could be a whole other storyline. If we could go inside the company and actually construct scenes with Richard Sackler and Kathe Sackler and Michael Friedman and Howard Udell and Paul Goldenheim, these characters.” And I didn’t know if I could, if there would be enough information out there to be able to do that. But then I thought, “Oh, well you got another storyline. Okay, this is getting good.” And then lastly, I thought, “Well, you can’t do all this without doing the victims. We need the victims, so how do we dramatize the victims?” And I chose Appalachia and a coal mining town because when I found the most, I don’t know if dramatics the word or the most interesting or the most maddening, was just the origin story of how it all it happened. And because Purdue Pharma had targeted mining, logging, and farming areas as their phase one launch, it made me think, “Okay, I need one of those kinds of towns will be the town that we personify as the victims of Oxycontin.”

And how I ended up on mining was, it’s so funny, I started Google imaging mines, logging facilities, and farms.

Geri Cole:

Wow.

Danny Strong:

And so I just started looking at them and then visually I really liked mines, and thought, “Oh, visually, this could be really interesting.” Because I had no bias towards, or a real strong opinion on, who was a bigger victim of Purdue Pharma, loggers, miners, or farmers. They’re all victims, but who should I personify? Because I felt like I couldn’t do more than one, for the sake of the story. And visually I thought of, “Okay, the mining world’s going to be really interesting.” And there was a really compelling cultural element to miners that I saw in these videos I started watching.

So that’s another thing I just do as a writer, is I start looking at YouTube videos. They’re not even documentaries. You’d just be surprised at how many random YouTube videos there are on any sort of subject matter. And sometimes there’s often these 10 minute documentaries that people just do, and they throw up, and they’re usually very raw and they’re not very polished and there can often be quite fascinating and quite fruitful because it’s someone living that experience, filming it on their phone, and filming interviews and then they put it together. And there was, watching these mining documentaries, these 10 minute long shorts, I would say short subjects on this, I was taken by the pride, the pride that miners had, in what they do and this feeling that they’re building America in those mines and building people’s homes and what they’re doing for the country. Which for me increased the sense of tragedy that they were taken advantage of by Purdue Pharma. That Purdue Pharma took advantage of the fact that they’d get injured. And so would be perfect people to target for Oxycontin.

And I’m not saying I didn’t get that sense of pride in logging communities and farming communities as well. I don’t know, I just liked the visual feel of being in the mines, and then I immediately started clicking on mining videos, and I was quite moved by watching the interviews with people talking about how proud they were of what they did. So that was my start.

Geri Cole:

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Also, I love that YouTube holes are a part of your process. You just like start watching.

Danny Strong:

Yeah, all the time, all the time. And it’s not even that deliberate, it’s sort of, I’m like, well, I don’t know anything about that. And then I’ll just go to YouTube and start watching because I often write things about things I don’t know anything about. I did a little video once where it was, it wasn’t write what you know, it was write what you’re passionate about. And for me, it’s what I’m passionate about and just what I’m interested in. You know? Like, “Oh, I don’t know anything about that. That’s really interesting.” And I’m not afraid to start from scratch on something.

Geri Cole:

That’s a really awesome perspective because I feel like you do always hear the write what you know, which is not bad advice, but, yeah, also write what you’re fascinated in, because then there’ll be no shortage of enthusiasm.

Danny Strong:

That’s exactly right. I think write what you know is, by the way, by all means, write what you know, if that’s what someone wants to do. I mean, I think that’s a great idea, but I do think that it’s also completely totally appropriate for someone who’s not a professional writer, who wants to write a book on something or a memoir, someone works in the horse business or is a lawyer and they want to write a book or a screenplay or a play or whatever they want to write. And it’s like, “Well, if you’ve never written anything, maybe you should write about the law or the horse business or whatever it is that you have that background in. That makes total sense.” But I’ve spent the last, I don’t know, 20 years, 22 years now, writing, not every day, almost though. I mean, there’ve been times off, for sure, where I’m in a production on something. So it’s not about, I don’t need to dwell on my own past to write something. In fact, I’m not really interested in my own past.

If I were to write a project about actors in their 20’s auditioning for guest stars and commercials and voiceovers, and then occasionally a movie, if you’re lucky, that’s the only project, that’s the only script I got inside of me that’s in the right category.

Geri Cole:

Well, I mean, I would watch that too.

Danny Strong:

Okay. Okay. Good.

Geri Cole:

So you had these sort of like, I want to say four threads of the DEA investigation, the legal investigation, the inside the Sackler family, and then the victims. Were there any other threads that you considered, and had to edit out and then how did you, I guess decide, because there are so many characters and you’re going back and forth between different times and it’s so much, but it’s so clear and how did you work out that structure and figuring out what to edit?

Danny Strong:

Well, and there are some sub threads as well where the Sackler family, there’s the thread of Purdue Pharma and then there’s this other thread, which is a major storyline, which is the pharma reps, which is Billy and Amber, mostly focused on Billy’s story of the world of the pharma rep as well. So I have another sub thread in the Sackler storyline that I wanted to make a big storyline, which was Arthur Sackler in the ’50s and the ’60s coming up with all the advertising techniques, his motivation, that his nephew Richard would come to prefect or use in the marketing and distribution of Oxycontin. Because it’s very much Arthur Sackler’s playbook, everything that they did to market Oxycontin, it’s just sprayed out of what he was doing in the ’50s and he ’60s. And I thought that could be a fascinating sort of Godfather II like thread.

And I ended up cutting it because we had shifted from 10 episodes to eight episodes. It was originally going to be 10. And then when the show went from FX to Hulu, because I originally wrote the pilot for FX. When I went to Hulu, we decided to drop down to eight. And one of the reasons was, well, there was a couple of reasons. One, there was a concern that, “I don’t know, can I get people to watch 10 episodes on the opioid crisis?” Eight felt, even though it’s still plenty of episodes, felt a little more palpable.

Geri Cole:

Wow, okay.

Danny Strong:

And then there was a rival Netflix project, which was ahead of us. They had already started a writers’ room. We knew they had a writer’s room that had been going for a few months maybe at that point, I’m not sure the exact date they started, maybe six weeks, whatever it was, but we were behind. And I’m a fast writer and I thought, “Okay, well if it’s eight episodes, maybe I could even catch up with them and beat them to production,” because I felt like I could go faster than a writer’s room could go. But then we ended up doing a writer’s room and I had four writers. It was a small room and they were great. It was a great group. So. that’s what happened.

And then they just went into production a few weeks ago.

Geri Cole:

Wow. So you did beat them.

Danny Strong:

Yeah. We went into production in January and they went into production in September. So we beat them by eight or nine months. So they’re actually going to be in production while we’re airing. But it’s Netflix and maybe Netflix just doesn’t care. They’ve got their own algorithm and millions and hundreds of millions of eyeballs and so it just doesn’t matter to them. Which by the way, great, more power to everyone.

Geri Cole:

Absolutely.

Danny Strong:

So anyways, that was part of the process of how that Godfather II storyline went away. Sorry, if these answers are so long winded.

Geri Cole:

No, no, no. That’s great.

Danny Strong:

And then the construction of the narrative of, four, maybe five, intertwined storylines, over three different time periods, was incredibly complicated and was really difficult to construct and was difficult to edit and post. And what made it difficult was the timeline jumping and I think it’s pretty seamless in the show. I think it works pretty effortlessly, but it was not effortlessly constructed. It was really challenging to put it together. When I was writing the pilot, I thought to myself, all right, this would have been hard enough with four storylines, let alone doing it in three different time periods. But when I was writing the pilot, I started to get the rhythm of it and started to feel my way through it. And I started just coming up with sort of principles of better to try and stay in a single timeline for as many scenes as possible, the Finch Creek and the Sackler world, I will always keep them in the same timeline. So I will never move Richard Sackler around into someone else’s timeline. He’ll always stay in the same timeline as Dr. Fenix and Betsy.

It felt like there were some key principles that I would not deviate from. And I ended up deviating from them like once or twice. Richard Sackler appears in Bridget’s storyline, because Richard Sackler went and had a meeting with the DA, that actually happened and it was a great opportunity to have these characters meet. And actually that scene in which he goes and meets at the DEA, much of it is verbatim as the meeting actually happened per the sourcing.

Geri Cole:

Wow.

Danny Strong:

Per the books I read on it, but not the whole scene. There’s definitely some made up, but the foundation of it is actually what happened. So really sticking to that principle. And then I thought if I did that, then the few times I break it, and a character shows up in someone else’s timeline, if it’s not confusing, hopefully it will be very exciting, because it will be years have passed, or it’ll be like, oh wow. And then we can have a ton of information in one cut where we can find out what happened to someone in one cut.

And I had, in episode six, one of the characters show up in the investigative, the US Attorney’s story timeline and you found out what happened to him in episode six.

Geri Cole:

I was going to say. Was it episode six? Is that the Michael [crosstalk 00:16:43]

Danny Strong:

I’m not going to say who or what, but what ended up happening was right before we shot it, not the scene, but that episode, I re-read the script. And I thought, “No, I’m not ready for the audience to know what happened to this character. It’s under cutting dramatic tension for the next two episodes.” And I took the scene out. So I was like, “We’re not even going to shoot the scene, I’m going to cut it, because I don’t want the audience to know by episode six what happened to him? I want them to know in episode eight.” And luckily it was such an easy thing to fix. It was just removing one scene.

Geri Cole:

Wow. Wait, can we, I want to know now what that scene was that was removed.

Danny Strong:

I’m not going to say what had happened, but it was Billy, the pharma rep. In episode six, I had the audience know what happened to him.

Geri Cole:

Oh. Okay.

Danny Strong:

Where his arc ended up because he appeared in Rick and Randy’s storyline, which is taking place several years after the storyline, we’ve been following him throughout the show. And I thought it would be exciting and cool.

Geri Cole:

Yeah.

Danny Strong:

And then I realized, yeah, it is cool, but it also it’s undercutting his arc for the rest of the season.

Geri Cole:

Oh, yeah. I see that.

Danny Strong:

So I removed it.

Geri Cole:

Okay, wow. I have so many followup questions. One, because I want to ask you about the writer’s room and how that worked. But I also, before we move on into the writer’s room, I do want to hear, how did you come up with those guidelines of not to cross and how many guidelines did you have? And I guess, did they just sort of come organically as you were writing the pilot where it’s like how to keep this clear?

Danny Strong:

They were all logic based.

Geri Cole:

Okay.

Danny Strong:

They were really logic based of just if I’m going to do three different timelines, how do I not make it confusing? And I think it was trial and error where I think that I would put a character in another character’s timeline, and this was when I was writing the pilot, and I’d read it and I’d think, “Oh, that’s really going to confuse the audience.” And it was really that. It’s almost that simple, where when I did it, it read confusing because you didn’t know where you were in time, and so that’s when I started coming up with these rules, and they were really about clarity at the end of the day.

And then if I’m going to break them, it’s going to be crystal clear that I’ve broken them, that this character’s entered someone else’s timeline, because we’re now with that character years later, and I would only do it if it’s powerful to do it. And it was a few times. I didn’t do it much, but the Richard Sackler example’s sort of perfect. Actually I don’t even necessarily think it’s powerful that he’s in another timeline. I just think we’re just excited to see him and her, face to face.

Geri Cole:

Yes. Very much so. So, yeah, let’s talk a little bit about the writer’s room. You said you didn’t plan on having one, but then actually in this you also worked with Beth Macy who wrote the book the series was based on. How did you guys get together and how did you run the room?

Danny Strong:

So I had developed this entire show and then sold it to 20th before I even knew the book Dopesick existed, because it hadn’t been published yet. Fox 21, a sister studio at the same company, not knowing I had sold the show to 20th, goes and buys the book Dopesick in a bidding war, and I read about it on Deadline. So all of a sudden on Deadline I see that another studio, at my own company, has bought a rival project and has created a rival project. And so they were in trouble because I had a pitch ready to go. I had the whole show worked out. They just had a book which can take six months to a year to two years to find a writer and a take that you’re willing to go take around town with.

So they asked me if I would team up with them and I agreed to team up. Well, I met with Beth Macy first. I read the book and I loved the book. The book’s wonderful. And then I met with Beth Macy and I loved her. She’s just a wonderful person, just genuine, lovely person. I remember she said to me, “I just want you to know I’m not an asshole.” And I said, “Well, I won’t work with assholes,” if I don’t have to. Sometimes you get stuck. And I said, “So that’s perfect because I’m not an asshole either and I can’t stand them. The job’s hard enough without them.” So at that point I had already sketched out the season. I’d already sketched out the season, real preliminary, but I just had episode sketches of what they all.

So I had done, I’d read four or five books, I just had done so much research. I’d sketched out the season. I had the pilot. I just was ready to go write it on my own. Then when we teamed up with Beth Macy, they’d made a deal with Beth that she got to write an episode, and she’d never written television before. And then I thought, “Well, they have this deal with her. I can push them out of it. But I really like her and she’s really excited about writing television. And what if I just did a small room instead of me doing it all?” So I thought, “Well, I’ll have maybe three or four people in the room.” I met with a number of writers. I told all the writers that, “I’ve had the season mapped out and I was going to write this myself so I’m going to co-write every episode with you. So if you don’t want that, don’t take this job.” And everyone was really cool about it except one of the writers that I met with, she in the negotiation, she said, “No, I’m going to write my own. I don’t want the job unless I get to write my own episode.” And I thought she was bad-ass. And I said, “Okay.”

I was like, “Okay, you can. Fine.” I just thought I loved her at meeting and I loved her sample and I loved that she said, “I won’t take the job unless I get to write my own episode.” Everything about it I thought was incredibly cool. So I was like, “Okay.” So episode four has a sole credit in case you’re wondering why. So that’s how that all came to be. And the room was lovely. I had my former assistant, who was also my researcher for years. It was his first writing job. So basically the room was two people that had never been on staff before, and then two upper level writers.

So that’s why the two newbies were totally comfortable co-writing. In fact, maybe preferred it. And then the one upper level that I co-wrote with, he was having a baby. He was very comfortable with it. And then the one writer was like, “No, I’m writing my own.” And my response was, “High five. Done.”

Geri Cole:

Awesome.

Danny Strong:

Yeah. And so it was a very small room, very lean and mean, and that’s what we did.

Geri Cole:

Wow. So you did a ton of research and obviously had the book as your point of inspiration, but I’m curious as to how much, you said that one scene is almost verbatim, how much of this is fictionalized? I know obviously like the intimate moments are fictionalized, but how much is fictionalized? Or is there anything fictionalized, I suppose, in the timeline or in the different aspects of the story? Or is it all like straight from research?

Danny Strong:

It’s a dramatization, for sure. Aaron Sorkin has a perfect quote about his non-fiction movies, which is that, “They’re not photographs, they’re paintings.” And I think that’s exactly right for me as well, is that I view them as paintings, but the essential core of the painting is the truth. But there’s artistic brushstrokes throughout it. The town Finch Creek, they’re all composite characters, but they’re inspired by so many different people, so many different anecdotes. I think they’re imbued in the truth every step of the way, but there is dramatization, and there’s dramatization in all the storylines. The US Attorney’s case isn’t beat by beat what was said, the Sackler scenes and the Purdue scenes aren’t beat by beat what they were said.

But I will often use fictional scenes as a conduit to get out true facts. So the point of the scene is to get true information out, even though the scene may not have happened like that. And the key to that is that the scene itself doesn’t defame anyone, that feels like it is based on the truth of who they are, of the things they did. And when someone’s doing something illegal or even negative or saying something that could shine them in a negative light, that it’s true, that that actually happened. That’s kind of the bar.

But in the case of this show, the Disney lawyers, because Disney owns Hulu, went over every script with a vetting process that I’ve never experienced, with a fine tooth comb. It was really intense.

Geri Cole:

Yeah. They know. They don’t want to get sued.

Danny Strong:

Yeah. And I didn’t want them to get sued.

Geri Cole:

Yeah.

Danny Strong:

So they would bring up stuff that they were uncomfortable with. Most of the stuff they brought up, and it wasn’t a ton, that they weren’t sure about, it was because they hadn’t found the right sourcing for, and I would just send them the right sourcing. And then we would almost always then be able to keep it, because everything that was even close to the line was based on usually two sources. And then sometimes they were interviews that I’d done would corroborate that sourcing as well. And then there were a few instances where even with the sourcing they felt like the dialogue maybe went too far from a legal standpoint, not even from a truth standpoint, and then I would tweak it to make them-

Geri Cole:

More comfortable.

Danny Strong:

Yeah, make them more comfortable.

Geri Cole:

So in writing characters like the Sacklers, you also have written the Presidential election film Recount, and Game Change, which is about the rise of Sarah Palin. I guess it’s sort of writing these characters, based on real people, whom some of us might have very strong feelings about.

Danny Strong:

Sure.

Geri Cole:

And so wanting to, I guess, how do you approach writing these types of people? And I’m curious as to if this has helped at all by also being an actor and having to sort of find the humanity in people to be fair in their depiction?

Danny Strong:

Yeah, 100%. So you kind of nailed it on the head with, I write all my characters as if I’m playing them. So I’m constantly playing every role as I’m writing it. So people say, “Do you think of actors when you’re writing?” And the truth is I usually don’t because as I’m writing, I’m playing it myself. And then I think about casting, usually after the fact. Sometimes I’ll pop into my head who would be good for it, but I don’t use an actor as an archetype for the writing. And the goal is, here’s an example. So I had a wonderful source in Purdue Pharma that worked with Richard Sackler for years, and hated him, so much. The way she talked about him, it just seemed like it was just in the most negative of terms.

Geri Cole:

I mean, surprised? No.

Danny Strong:

Yeah. I was trying to find stuff and I kept saying, “Well, what else? Was there times of joy or kindness or things?” Trying to find things that made him tick, and I said, “Look, I’m just trying to humanize him.” And she said, “Why?” And I said, “Well, because that’s my job.” My job is to create, well not create, is to portray people in as three dimensional way as possible. And the truth is, is that even the worst people are three-dimensional people, most of the time. I’ve had a few incidents where it’s like, “Wow, you are just awful.” But most people are very complicated and I’m very interesting.

And I, with Richard, he seems so loathed, not just nationally, but even within his own family and his own company. It just seems like no one likes him. And I think it’s because of his personality. I think there is a personality disorder there. People would describe them as on the spectrum, and not in a sympathetic way, in a sort of harsh way. But so the goal for me was to figure out what’s his motivation? What does he want? What makes him tick? What’s driving him? And the goal was to find as many layers as I could. And it was challenging with him in particular because the information that’s out there about him, there’s quite a bit, but it’s not that intimate. But I would glean little hints from different things. His son, David Sackler talks about him in an interview and then there’s an email exchange in which David has written his mother and he talks very explicitly about his dad. And then he talks about the grandfather and the family dynasty. So there’s a lot of clues to be had in David Sackler’s email about his father and his family.

So it was kernels of information that I would get that I would use to piece together the portrayal of him.

Geri Cole:

Man.

Danny Strong:

It’s a real investigation. Some ways you’re like an archeologist.

Geri Cole:

Yeah.

Danny Strong:

You know? Just searching.

Geri Cole:

It’s so much work, yeah.

Danny Strong:

Finding, trying to find. Yeah, it is a lot of work. It’s a lot harder than just making stuff up. But for some people they find what I do with these kinds of projects, they could be less interested in doing something like that. That’s not what writing is to them. What writing is is coming up with just their own original stories.

But even when I do original pieces that aren’t true stories where I just work in pure fiction, it usually stems from research is where I start to put it together, is researching a world and then I read anecdotes about people and then start putting the project together that way.

Geri Cole:

Hmm. I feel like you’ve had a very diverse career of being an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, and then the types of projects also, from the Hunger Games to The Butler to like so many different types of projects.

Danny Strong:

Empire.

Geri Cole:

Working with Lee Daniels. Yeah, Empire. How have you managed to have such a diverse career? And do you think there is a thread through all of it? Is there a type of story you’re attracted to?

Danny Strong:

The thread is social justice or exposing, shining a light, on issues that I think need to be discussed in a public place and issues that I think are important to people, that are sometimes just historical issues that I think are important to retread and talk about. There’s usually something, I would like to think profound or deep or meaningful at the core of it, that shines a light on subject matter that has national or humanitarian implications. So that’s the guiding thread. I produced a TV show that sadly was not successful, but it was called Proven Innocent and it was 20th, or, no Fox, the network really wanted me to bring them a legal procedural.

And then right around then David Elliott, the writer, came to me and said, “I want to do a show on the innocence projects.” And I thought, “Well, that’s a home run. That’s exactly the kind of thing I want to do, is taking a procedural mainstream piece of entertainment and then making it about a wrongful conviction.” And so it’s entertainment, but wrongful convictions it’s core, and so it does two things for me when I work on those kinds of projects. One is that I feel like the project’s important. It’s worthy of being told. It’s not just entertainment. But then two, I think if done correctly, it makes the piece more dramatic and a better piece of entertainment. Because people always talk about, “Oh, you want to have the entertainment to go with the vegetables.” And to me, it’s like, “No, I think the vegetables are the entertainment.”

It’s not about hiding the fact that it’s meaningful. It’s about making the meaning central to the story so that it creates higher stakes for everyone involved and it makes it a more powerful piece of entertainment. So those are my sort of two main goals or what I seek to accomplish by working on this kind of subject matter, is intelligent, meaningful, material at its core, if you can make it entertaining, I just think is overall better entertainment than something that is much less ambitious. That’s just me personally.

Geri Cole:

Yeah. Actually, I think you touched upon another thing that I wanted to ask you about, which is about the power of story and about how entertainment has the power to affect change. And it was one of the things that I thought about actually while watching the series, because even just in the talking points that the sales reps were given, it’s like this is the story that they’re telling the doctors, and the story that the doctors have been telling their, and it’s a false story, but it’s still a story. And I’m always fascinated by the power of story and that some people just need a new story or they need to hear the truth or. Yeah, and it was one of the things that I thought that especially the series does.

Danny Strong:

Yeah.

Geri Cole:

Is like tell this story that we all need to hear. We’re running a little bit out of time. So I do want to ask is the question that I like to ask everyone on the podcast about success, because I feel like success, especially as a creative professional, is a tricky thing. And you’re never sort of like, “Am I in it? What does it look like?” And so I’m curious as to what success looks like for you and if that has changed over the years?

Danny Strong:

Hmm. It’s funny because when I think in terms of success, I don’t think in terms of myself. I think in terms of the project. And I think that if I were to tie it back to myself, it’s because my ultimate goal is artistic success, not power or money. I just want the project to succeed so that I get to make more projects.

So when I look at success, I think did the project succeed? Is it a win or a loss? It’s funny. And that can mean different things. Sometimes you can’t quantify that in box office bonus over the weekend or the ratings, because success means different things to different companies. And sort of my version of success is, I guess, did it become a cultural conversation? Did a breakthrough? Have people even heard of it? I’ve done projects where people literally have no one ever heard of. And so to me that that is one version of success.

And I think it kind of depends on what you’re making. So for the legal drama, if that had stayed on the air for six years on Friday night and had a small audience, but was on for six years, it would have been a grand slam home run for that project. Although six years would be a home run for any project, to be honest with you, but it’s sort of like that show wasn’t designed to win awards. Had it had been a cultural conversation, had it had shined a light on wrongful conviction, not in a sort of powerful national moment, like say Empire was, but even if at all, there could have been a healthy conversation around the issue, I think that would have made that a success as well.

And neither of those things happened. So I don’t think the project was successful. It just kind of came and went really quickly. And the people that did watch it, we had the smallest audience and people that did watch it loved it, because it was really well done. I felt bad for the creator and the show runner and the team but we all tried really hard and by the way, that’s the breaks. That’s just how it goes. And that happens more often than not.

Geri Cole:

But it also got made.

Danny Strong:

And some people would say if something gets made, it’s a huge success. And I don’t disagree with that. I think getting things made is people just don’t understand how impossible it is to get anything made that aren’t in the business because so much content is coming their way. Little do they know that that’s 50 things had to not go for that to go, that it’s crazy impossible to get anything made. So, for me Game Change was a success even before it had aired because it had exploded into such a national conversation and it had generated so much publicity the week that it came out. And this president, or CEO, I think it was the CEO was his official title at HBO, Richard Plepler, who’s an incredible guy. I love Plepler so much. He came up to me, it was at some event the night before it actually did air, and he said, “Danny, it doesn’t even matter what happens tomorrow. You’ve hit a home run. The amount of press we’ve generated in the last week has made this a home run for HBO,” because what it had done for the brand, is that the brand was everywhere, non-stop.

And then the show aired and it was the highest rated film of the decade for HBO and then it went on to sweep award season. So it went from like a home run to like grand slam, we won the World Series, like really, really, really exciting. But before all that, before all that, it was a success. Now, it wasn’t a complete success to me until it aired and people were responding to it and that conversation kept going. But so, I think it really depends on the project and what the ambition for the project is. I don’t know how I’ll define success for Dopesick. I think that if the actions of Purdue Pharma and that was micromanaged by the Sacklers, if that becomes a big national discussion because people will see what was done, what the company did and are outraged, I think that will feel like a success to me.

Of course, if it gets big eyeballs and numbers, well, check. Everyone will quantify that as a success. But I think if we can have some big conversations, if there’s some big conversations about treatments and therapies and ways that we can move on to turn the corner on the crisis, then that’ll be, I think, the greatest success that project could possibly ever hope for.

Geri Cole:

Man. That’s a lovely place for us to close actually. And I wish this project all of the success in all of the ways, because it really was a beautiful piece of work.

Danny Strong:

Ah, thank you.

Geri Cole:

Thank you so much for talking with us today.

Danny Strong:

Oh, I loved it.

Geri Cole:

I was so fascinating, also, just because this was a lot of work and it’s just really great to get to talk with you about how did you do this?

Danny Strong:

Yeah, yeah.

Geri Cole:

So thank you so much for sharing.

Danny Strong:

Well, it was unusual for me the amount of research I did before I wrote the pilot and as I was writing the pilot. Normally, I won’t read five books to write a pilot, but sometimes I’ll read one or two, but it was just a tremendous. And I wrote the pilot slower than I would normally write a pilot because I wanted it to be really great. I just thought, “This is really hard to get this made. And it was so complicated. I’m just going to take my time and do something that can hopefully be really great.” So I’m glad I did that.

Geri Cole:

You did.

Danny Strong:

I’m glad I took that time.

Geri Cole:

You absolutely did. Again, thank you so much for talking to us today.

Danny Strong:

Thank you. This was so much fun.

Geri Cole:

Thank you so much for making this series, and, again, I’m excited to see episode eight.

Danny Strong:

Episode eight, probably week, week and a half.

Geri Cole:

Okay, awesome.

That’s it for this episode. On Writing is a production of the Writers Guild of America East and is hosted by me, Geri Cole. This series was created and is produced by Jason Gordon. Tech production and original music by Taylor Bradshaw and Stockboy Creative. Our associate producer and designer is Molly Beer. You can learn more about the Writers Guild of America East online at wgaeast.org and you can follow the Guild on all social media platforms @WGAEast. If you liked this podcast, please subscribe and rate us. Thank you for listening, and write on.